Monday, 15 April 2013

Dave Davies and George Harrison: Parallel Lives Part II

Both were the youngest members of the band and the lead
guitarists. They may even have played the same guitar.

Dave says:

‘Somebody had loaned me a custom-built Guild guitar that had
once been owned by George Harrison. In those days we carried our own
instruments and when we arrived at the airport in LA all the bags arrived
except for that guitar.’ Dave went on to buy a Gibson Futurist, aka the
Flying Vee, for $200. I think the moral of this tale is ‘Don’t lend
Dave your guitar.’

And they loved their guitars:

In Kink, Dave writes of a girlfriend:

‘She was terribly jealous of that guitar, the way I held it,
the way I cared for it. She always thought I loved it more than I did her.’

George told Beatles
Monthly:

‘I believe I love my
guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is
pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making
up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar
for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different
instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly
musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied.’

Collaboration

It seems that Dave and George had similar attitudes when
working with others to create a song. The result was more important than who
did what.

Two quotes from Dave illustrate this:

‘Lola was written in a similar way to You Really Got Me. We
got together in Ray's front room, and Ray had the basic idea of the song, the
skeleton idea … and I just started playing E in the bottom position, moved it
up to A, leaving the E string open and in the chord. Ray said, 'Ah, that's
great. Let's put that in as well.' [As a songwriter] Ray has a very firm idea
about what he wants to do, and I try to accommodate him as best I can, but I
think in certain areas, on certain songs, there's a lot more collaboration than
people realise. Although Ray and I don't get on particularly well, there's a
lot of empathy and unspoken energy that goes toward the finished product.’

'I think a rock 'n' roll record should start off being a song and should
end up being a song. I think that everything around it should be complementary
to it, or help it to evolve, rather than get in its way. I've always tried to
keep that in mind as a guitar player. Rather than say, 'Let's start with the
guitar and a 16 bar solo.' It's the song that's important, and the individual
parts add to it.'

Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner described George
Harrison as:

‘a guitarist who was never showy but who had an innate,
eloquent melodic sense. He played exquisitely in the service of the song.’

‘George Harrison and I were once in a car and the Beatles
song You Can't Do That came on, with that great riff in the beginning on the
12-string. He goes, "I came up with that.” … He said, “I was just standing
there and thought, I've got to do something!” That pretty much sums him up. He
just had a way of getting right to the business, of finding the right thing to
play. That was part of that Beatles magic – they all seemed to find the right
thing to play.’

This is true of the Kinks too. Ray knew that he could rely
on Dave to play something apposite and in tune with the spirit of the song. To
me, it seems that although George and Dave weren’t writing as prolifically,
they used their energy and creativity to contribute to the compositions. They
understood what Aristotle meant by ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.’ For some reason, I’ve always had that quotation backwards, that the sum
of the parts is greater than the whole.

Recognition

I’m sure they experienced similar frustrations when their
songs did not make the final album cut, with both only allowed a couple of
songs per LP. In the case of the Beatles, this was instrumental in the
decision to split.

In 1969, McCartney told Lennon:

‘Until this year, our songs
have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as
ours.’

Thanks, guys.

This is certainly a situation that Dave could relate to. In
Kink, he tells of occasions when a song of his would be slated to appear on an
album, then mysteriously disappear at the last minute. Thanks, bro. Whether
this was the result of Ray’s insecurity or a real belief (as with Lennon and
McCartney) that his songs were better, we’ll never know.

Now I’m thinking that one reason Dave’s songs didn’t get
released might be that he was reluctant to fight his corner. I know it seems
unlikely given his reputation as a battler but perhaps Dave lacked confidence
in his own ability. I say this because the three songs I want to consider here
in relation to George’s aren’t even indexed in Kink although he mentions She’s
My Girl, another song recorded but not released. Or did Dave fail in advocacy
of his songs because they were products of his pain at the time and too
personal?

By the late 60s/early 70s, both George and Dave have reached
a pinnacle of sorts. I’ve chosen to highlight three of their songs from this
time to try to showcase what’s so special about their writing. It actually
makes me angry that Dave’s songs get so little recognition from a wider public
(or even from Dave) when so many less deserving talents reap so many rewards.
Was it ever thus? I’ve already trashed most modern music in my first blog and
don’t want to come across as reactionary but everything seems so generic and
formulaic these days – the same beats, the same rap interlude (I really enjoy
getting aggressively harangued by a sexist man), the same inane lyrical content, the same tiny scrap of a melody,
repeated endlessly. I know there are exceptions but even today’s modern-day
‘rock’ bands all seem to be one-trick ponies recycling soundalike riffs from
yesteryear in a completely pedestrian manner (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, the Kaiser
Chiefs, etc.). Ok, enough with the rant already.

Immediate, fresh, beautifully heartfelt, Dave’s strange
pronunciation of the double rs in sorrow and tomorrow adds to the poignancy of
his vocal, which is wistful, yearning, the verse resigned:

I wish that you'd have known/ Of all the plans I had in
store for us/ Laughing, dancing, travelling the world on our own

the chorus raging:

And this man, he weeps tonight/And his head is bowed with
sorrow/But what can you do, sitting there/And you let him cry tomorrow/Yes,
you'll let him cry tomorrow/Yes, you'll let him cry tomorrow

Both this and Mindless Child of Motherhood were B-sides, the
former paired with Drivin’, the latter with Shangri-la. I’m not debating that
both A-sides are great but I actually think the B-sides are better. At least
one deserved to be an A.

Plaintive, mournful, Dave sounds like he might actually weep
singing this. Simple and effective, imbued with pain and hope, this was only
available on acetate until the 2011 Hidden Treasures album.

Cause you're living with a man/Who will find no
understanding/Do you mind if I laid down and cried?/Do you ever know the
way/That I feel for you each day?/So are you ready girl?/Are you ready?

Asked whether he can feel the frustration in the songs on
Hidden Treasures, Dave replies:

‘In a way, but after all these years it has a charm because
of that. I couldn’t stand listening to it at the time. Is Are You Ready? on it?
I love that song. I hated it for years. It’s about Sue again.’

When Dave sings, it doesn’t sound like a typical Kinks
record at all. His voice is instantly recognisable and his songs have a totally
different feel. I think that’s a good thing, much as I love Ray, because it
adds to their appeal. This reminds me of the Byrds. Dave’s compositions seem to
spring from raw emotion, which he can no longer contain, and so releases in a
burst of cathartic song. I wish I had the know-how to describe the musical
phrasing, time signatures and everything in this amazing song. There’s a very good high-quality version on YouTube in which you can hear all the things I
can't express. Dave is angry and despairing:

How long must I travel on/To be just where you are?/Mindless
child of motherhood/You have lost the thing that's good

I love it even though I have no idea what the phrase
‘mindless child of motherhood’ means. It doesn’t matter.

Delicate intro, then each time George sings the title, the
guitar lets loose with a cry of its own, a strangled sob if you like, each
slightly different to the last, before a sustained solo and final burst of
wailing. Eric Clapton played lead guitar on this although he wasn’t credited on
the album.

Wiki facts: 136 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500
Greatest Songs of All Time, 7 in the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time and
10 in the Beatles 100 Greatest Songs. A Guitar World poll in February
2012 elected it the best of Harrison's Beatles-era songs.

But still not deemed good enough to be released as a single.

George explains the genesis of the song:

‘I wrote While My Guitar Gently Weeps at my mother's house
in Warrington. I was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of
Changes... . The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be,
and that there's no such thing as coincidence - every little item that's going
down has a purpose. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a simple study
based on that theory. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw
upon opening any book - as it would be relative to that moment, at that time. I
picked up a book at random, opened it, saw 'gently weeps', then laid the book
down again and started the song.’

I look at the world and I notice it's turning/While my
guitar gently weeps/With every mistake we must surely be learning/Still my
guitar gently weeps

Follows a similar pattern to While My Guitar – a pretty
guitar introduction, matched by the more insistent, louder guitar refrain that
follows. This song is really optimistic and open, the tone reminscent of Dave’s
song Wait till the Summer Comes Along. Dave’s supposedly down but still looking
on the bright side. George says:

‘Here
Comes the Sun was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where
we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'Sign that'. Anyway, it seems
as if winter in England goes on forever; by the time spring comes you really
deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off [bunk off] Apple and I went over
to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey
accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's
acoustic guitars and wrote Here Comes The Sun.’

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter/Little
darling, it feels like years since it's been here/Here comes the sun/Here comes
the sun, and I say/It's all right

Finally George scores an A-side but having said that, the
song was still originally handed to Joe Cocker, who released it first.

There’s a build of momentum, a gradual ascent, the guitar
parts adding colour and texture before the peak of the bridge, which arrives
like a tiger bursting through a paper hoop.

Wiki facts: The Beatles version topped the US Billboard
charts and went top five in the UK. Covers by over 150 artists (including Elvis
Presley, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett and Eric
Clapton) make it the second-most covered Beatles song after Yesterday. Harrison’s
favourite take on the song was apparently James Brown's, which he put on his personal jukebox.

The song's lyrics were taken from the title of a song by
fellow Apple artist James Taylor, Something in the Way She Moves, and used as
filler while the melody was being developed. The song's second line, ‘Attracts
me like no other lover’ was the last to be written; during early recording
sessions for Something, Harrison alternated between two placeholder lyrics:
‘Attracts me like a cauliflower’ and ‘Attracts me like a pomegranate’.

George's delivery is impassioned:

You're asking me will my love grow/I don't know, I don't
know/You stick around and it may show/I don't know, I don't know/Something in
the way she knows/And all I have to do is think of her/Something in the things
she shows me/I don't want to leave her now/You know I believe and how

George tends to consider the bigger picture; Dave considers
the actual picture; Ray is examining a flaw in the frame but more of Ray's delectable talent in a later blog.

Philosophy and religion

Dave and George both embraced yoga, became vegetarian and developed a mutual interest in
Hinduism, Indian deities (My Sweet Lord was written in praise of Krishna but
the singing of Allelujah allowed it to appeal to Christians) and Eastern religions
and philosophy in general but, as usual, this blog is already too long. At the
Satsang weekends, Dave emphasises inclusivity and although his beliefs might be
based on Eastern concepts, he also calls on ‘Master Jesus’ and sings a version
of Hare Krishna, in which everyone participates. George says:

‘All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't
matter what you call Him just as long as you call.’

I don't think it could be put any better than that and it seems a good line to end on.

4 comments:

Great post, first of all! I am happy to see someone exploring the parallels between Dave and George.

Some extra info you may like: there are four gurus featured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper - Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Yukteswar Giri, and Paramhansa Yogananda. Each one was the other's master, with Yogananda being the first major Hindu swami to come to the United States. His book, Autobiography of a Yogi, was one of George Harrison's favorite books, and he regularly gave out copies of it to his friends.

Anyway, forgive the long background on that. Yogananda and his forerunners all praised the words of Jesus Christ, even referring to Jesus as a guru. This is not frequently talked about, but Hinduism holds a pluralistic view towards other religions, that they are all viable paths to know God, as that wonderful George quote of yours highlights.

Last tidbit: Meher Baba, a Persian mystic with good knowledge of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, was contemporary to Yogananda, also coming to the West to spread his message. He, too, had notable disciples in the rock world: Pete Townshend and Faces bassist Ronnie Lane.

Hi there,Thanks for reading. Glad you enjoyed it. I wanted to spend more time on the similarities in their spiritual journeys but am a bit of a spiritual philistine myself (a picknmix Catholic). It was really interesting to me to learn more about George in particular as I didn’t know that much. I knew that about Hinduism – it’s so much more accepting. I think that’s Dave’s philosophy as well so it’s natural that he would embrace it. Thanks for your input.SS

Excellent writing and research on my favorite musicians. I wish people had imagined what Lennon advised instead of all those double-dares. Now artists like Steve Vai and Morgan Freeman are keeping hives, protecting the bees because no one in government quite got what - you know - Dylan was saying, prizes be damned. Anyway, great blog, will read further often.